For the construction of buildings, especially housing, contractors employ the prefabrication of walls at the site. This includes the mounting of the first layer of exterior surface to the wall, which is usually plywood or particle board. The walls are built in a horizontal plane or flat position on a level surface. The level surface is usually the subfloor of the building to which the bottom of the wall will be mounted. This technique is employed due to the ease of assembling the components of the wall. The wall is maintained in a squared orientation due to the mounting of the exterior surface, which retains the position of all four corners of the wall. Once fabricated, the wall is lifted at the top of the wall and rotated about the bottom of the wall into an upright position on the subfloor by workmen on the job. The wall is then secured to the subfloor and any other walls as called for in the construction plans. The problem arises in that the walls are heavy due to length, addition of the exterior surface and any insulation between the wall and exterior surface. The increased weight requires more workmen then normally staffed by the contractor to lift the wall without risk of injury. The lack of staffing of workmen is due to the fact that there would be no work for the extra workmen except for the lifting of the walls. The contractor tends to incur costs for injury claims from workmen hurt during the lifting of walls. Most of the reported injuries are to the workmen's back, which can be quite costly to the contractor. Therefore, it would be advantageous for the contractor to remove the workmen from the physical labor of lifting walls, whenever possible.
There are various devices on the market to aid in the lifting of a wall during the erection of a building. Some of these devices employ some sort of power to lift the wall. The powered devices tend to be cumbersome to transport and setup. This adds to the cost of construction due to the additional time needed to transport and setup. The non-powered devices are simpler to use, but still require manual force by workmen to lift the wall. Therefore, the use of the non-powered device does not remove workmen from potential injury when lifting the wall. What is required in the construction industry is a wall lifting device which is easy to transport, easy to setup, simple to operate, and removes the workmen from physically lifting the wall.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a wall lift which removes workmen from physically lifting the wall.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a wall lift which is easy to transport, easy to setup and simple to operate.